"I don't think I can do this alone for much longer..."
The heavy sentence had echoed in his memory, the words and their tone repeated over and over in his head. Each playthrough only added another small notch of guilt to his already guilty conscience...but through everything, it was worse to have heard those words come from his brother's mouth; the brother that was five years his senior, the one who had a lifetime of responsibility suddenly thrust onto his shoulders. It hadn't been his fault. It hadn't been anyone's fault...nobody could have prevented it. Brother dearest had settled into the role of provider so easily it had been and still was hard to see and realize just how much of a toll it was actually taking. He always just took it for granted; he didn't have to do anything, it was already done for him; why would he pause to think about it? That day had been one of those times and those had been the words that brought reality back to him like a slap to the face.
In his guilt-ridden reverie and his face down flop on the bed he had failed to notice the door to his bedroom open; the deliberately slow and tip-toeing entrance of the live-in had similarly failed to draw his attention. That afternoon all signs pointed to an invasion, but he didn't take notice of them until it was too late; he had been doomed the moment he felt the foot on his back, followed very shortly by the peeling of headphones from his ears.
"Ariane." He had grumbled, his face still buried in his pillow.
"Yes?" Came the over-innocent reply from the one playing captor.
"Get off me, or I'll 'accidentally' delete your footage." It had been a monotone threat, and the immediate silence that followed only proved that his female captor was considering it. He had known he won when he felt the pressure ease off his back and the weight beside him as the second body sat next to him.
"Get into a fight with the Old Man again?" She had asked, picking at his hair. While he didn't remember replying, he did recall that she had continued talking anyway. "Well, whatever, this should cheer you up..." She had tucked a slip of paper under his hand, one that was later inspected and had an address on it, along with a meeting date and time for the next day.
From there his memory slips away, the familiar image of his bedroom walls and their various posters fading, only to be replaced by the dark, peeling and water-stained walls of an abandoned bedroom. The familiar stench of nicotine and other chemicals drifting up from the cigarette in his left hand, the texture and weight of his favourite hand-me-down brown jacket, the feel of a hand held camera in the other...
Oh. Right.
So that's how she got him to come with her again. Damn that girl and her tricksy ways, using a moment of weakness to talk him into this again. Granted he liked their little hobby, but every time she arranged these little outings, he always not-so-secretly hoped that there would be something a little more...intimate. Still, every single time, it was ghost hunting. Every. Single. Time.
It was alright though, he liked the hunt; the condemned buildings, the old tunnels and spooky forests. It gave him the thrills of the unknown that his everyday life never could. Of course he liked it better when his brother used to join them, but...he just never had time for this anymore, even outside of apparently tricking himself into believing that it was silly. He knew, deep down, that his brother didn't feel the way he insisted; but he never pressed the issue, he just continued doing what he was doing, since he was given the opportunity to do it. He raised his camera.
Something caught his attention.
"Hey!" He called out harshly to a figure he saw in a nearby doorway; it was too big to be Ariane. "Who's there?!" He demanded again, raising his camera and illuminating the figure with the green light from the handheld's night vision. "Dean? Is that you?" It was admittedly hard to see, but he felt it was safe to ask; had his brother changed his mind about joining them?! That would have been...awesome.
It wasn't Dean, and it wasn't the last time this particular person approached him, either. Over the next few weeks this stranger piqued his interests, appealing to every thrill of the unknown he craved, every break from general monotony he wished for...and, in the end, a chance at something different, something more. For him, it was even more appealing once he learned that Dean and Ariane had similar visits and, in the end, the offer was too tempting to pass up.
He signed the waiver, ending the story of Jeremy Sam White to begin the tale of yVII.
